Posts Tagged ‘exclusion’

Now, normally, this would be yet another edition of Jerry Brown Throws Down and I’d already be telling you just exactly what he can’t abide. But I don’t know, he’s not really throwing down on this one.

Anyway, get all the deets of California’s official anti-gambling Self Exclusion Program below. It used to be run old school, but now the joint is going online – that’s the news of the day.

SACRAMENTO – Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today unveiled an innovative, web-based computer program for all of California’s licensed cardrooms that is intended to help addicted gamblers break “their spiral of debt and addiction” by allowing them to voluntarily exclude themselves from gambling establishments.

“This system serves as a safety net for gambling addicts fighting to end their spiral of debt and addiction,” Brown said. “These are people who have chosen to help themselves, and we’ll assist them in keeping their pledges not to gamble.”

An estimated one million Californians suffer from problem or pathological gambling, and more than 1,000 of them have signed up for the Attorney General’s Self Exclusion Program, which allows problem gamblers to voluntarily exclude themselves from licensed cardrooms. So far, the program applies only to card rooms and not to the California lottery, tribal casinos or horse racing, but if the cardroom program is successful, it can be expanded.

To join the Self Exclusion Program, a problem gambler fills out a form, has it notarized, attaches a photograph and chooses to be excluded for one year, five years or his or her lifetime. The Self Exclusion form can be found at http://ag.ca.gov/gambling/exclusion_self.php

Of the 1,009 gamblers voluntarily on the list, 285 are for one-year terms, 196 are on for five- years, and 528 signed up for lifetime terms. Options are offered because some patrons are trying to learn to gamble responsibly while others are pathological or compulsive gamblers.